Radiation Exposure News and Research

Despite a broad campaign among physician groups to reduce the amount of imaging in medicine, the rates of use of CT, MRI and other scans have continued to increase in both the U.S. and Ontario, Canada, according to a new study of more than 135 million imaging exams conducted by researchers at UC Davis, UC San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente.

The dangers of ultraviolet radiation exposure, which most often comes from the sun, are well-known. Speaking at The Physiological Society's Extreme Environmental Physiology conference next week, W. Larry Kenney, Penn State University, will discuss how broad its effects can be, from premature aging to cancer, and how this can be influenced by different skin tones and the use of sunscreen.

A personalized approach to cancer treatment has become more common over the last several decades, with numerous targeted drugs approved to treat particular tumor types with specific mutations or patterns.

Use of medical imaging during pregnancy increased significantly in the United States, a new study has found, with nearly a four-fold rise over the last two decades in the number of women undergoing computed tomography CT scans, which expose mothers and fetuses to radiation. Pregnant women are warned to minimize radiation exposure.

High above the Earth, researchers are conducting a first-of-its-kind study to help patients with Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis on the planet below. The International Space Station experiment is looking for what triggers these diseases by studying how nerve and immune brain cells interact.

As part of continuing efforts to provide patients with the latest in medical technology, Mercy Medical Center has added the Medtronic O-arm Mobile Surgical Imaging System to lessen radiation exposure and improve spinal surgery results, Charles C. Park, M.D., Ph.D., Director of The Minimally Invasive Brain and Spine Center at Mercy has announced.

By examining both blood samples and tumor tissues from patients with non-small-cell lung cancer, investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital have identified markers that can distinguish between major subtypes of lung cancer and can accurately identify lung cancer stage.

Researchers led by Zacharias Mandalenakis from University of Gothenburg in Gothenburg, Sweden, have looked at data from the National registry in Sweden to assess the risk of cancers among children and young adults who have been diagnosed with congenital heart disease compared to those who did not have such a diagnosis.

Zillionaires like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who see the 'colonization' of space as an answer to the Earth's ever threatened resources will be reassured to learn that human sperm retains its complete viability within the different gravitational conditions found in outer space.

A team of bioengineers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, with funding from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, have developed an artificial intelligence technique that uses image post-processing to rapidly convert low-dose computed tomography scans to images of superior quality, compared to low-dose scans that do not use the AI technique.

As advances in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) extend patients' lives, more of these patients are facing a different threat: adverse cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks and heart failure.

Partial breast irradiation produces similar long-term survival rates and risk for recurrence compared with whole breast irradiation for many women with low-risk, early stage breast cancer, according to new clinical data from a national clinical trial involving researchers from The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.

Prolonged exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation increased the risk of hypertension, according to a study of workers at a nuclear plant in Russia published in the American Heart Association's journal Hypertension.

There have been clear statements from regulatory bodies that have increased the pressure on pharmaceutical companies to go electronic with their records and ensure a high level of data integrity in all areas of the pharmaceutical industry.

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